


The Time Has Come As We All Go Down

by anD_nOw_tHe_wEaThEr (CryMeARiver3465)



Series: Way Down We Go [2]
Category: Keeper of the Lost Cities Series - Shannon Messenger
Genre: Aftermath of Death Scene, Angst, Cassius Sencen's A+ Parenting, Dead Body Kicking, F/M, Fitz has anger issues but they're pointed somewhere good for once, Gisela Sencen's A+ Parenting, He Gets a Hug, Heavy Angst, I hate Gisela, I'm not surprised that isn't a tag, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, It's hard to be smol, Keefe Sencen Needs a hug, Minor Sophie Foster/Keefe Sencen, Not Canon Compliant, Offscreen character death, Sophie Foster is in love with Keefe Sencen but is Dating Fitz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-19 10:49:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29998224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CryMeARiver3465/pseuds/anD_nOw_tHe_wEaThEr
Summary: "There’s something that is equally a relief and a curse in finding the body.Like, it’s horrifying, and terrible, but at least you know for sure that they’re gone. "They find Gisela on a battlefield. The battle's over. And even though her body's there, Gisela's gone.~~~AKA: Gisela's dead body gets kicked by Fitz because honestly I'm just a pissed off fanfic writer and I need some form of gratification in my hatred of Gisela Sencen's "A+ Parenting".
Relationships: Biana Vacker & Fitz Vacker, Sophie Foster & Everyone, Sophie Foster & Keefe Sencen & Biana Vacker & Fitz Vacker, Sophie Foster/Fitz Vacker, Sophie Foster/Keefe Sencen
Series: Way Down We Go [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2200398
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	The Time Has Come As We All Go Down

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys!!! Hope you enjoy my angsty writer wares! This is all I have to offer the world currently. But I hope you enjoy, anyway. 
> 
> REMEMBER TO HEED THE TAGS, THIS IS ANOTHER HEAVY FIC. EXTRA TW: **MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH**. It's not on screen, but it's still there. STAY SAFE BABIES, ILY!

There’s something that is equally a relief and a curse in finding the body. 

Like, it’s horrifying, and terrible, but at least you know for sure that they’re gone. At least they’re not there to haunt you for the rest of your life, snarling and hissing their words of _“Your legacy, Keefe, you can’t run from it, you can’t hide. You were made for this, you are my legacy, and you always will be.”_

Keefe shook his head, sharply, trying to knock out those extra concerning ideas.

He would remake himself, start over from the beginning, and become more than his mother’s legacy, more than his father’s disappointment, he would be more than everything. He would be exactly who he wanted to be.

Or, at least. That’s what he had told himself. Before today.

Her blood was pooling on the ground, steadily, and he couldn’t make himself look away. 

She was dead. Her breath had stopped, her eyes were staring up at the sky, cold and glassy and unblinking. He was out of time to say anything, he was out of time to hear anything, he was out of time to tell his mother exactly how much he hated her and how much he loved her anyway. 

He inhaled a shaky, shaky breath. 

There’s nothing like watching the light leave your mother’s eyes to make you want to sob on the floor for several days straight, he decided. Nothing like knowing it’s all your fault to make you want to kill something. If he hadn’t been born, he realized, his mother could never have gotten to this point, never have gotten to where she was, if he had just not existed, then--

Sophie’s arms wrapped around him, tightly, and he realized he was crying. He swallowed, thickly, his heart thudding too loud in his chest. “It’s okay,” she whispered, in his ear, “It’s okay, Keefe, let it all out.”

So he cried. He cried and he cried and he cried.

His heart felt like it was crumbling to pieces in his chest, broken, some vital part ripped out of it, and shoved into a pulverizer. But, for once in his life, he just let it out, he let his tears roll down his cheeks, and he didn’t try to stop them. 

Sophie’s arms tightened around him, slightly. 

Fitz stood a ways away, glaring at Keefe’s mother’s corpse, and oh stars did it kill Keefe to think that. His mother was gone. Very, very, very gone, and he couldn’t breathe around the lump of horrible emotion in his throat and why did he even feel like this, he shouldn’t have felt like this, his mother had hated him.

A sob crept out of his throat. 

She had hated him. 

All the emotions he was feeling were wrong, they had to be, how could he be so sick as to love someone who hated… who hated everything, who hated him?

Keefe swallowed again, and tried to stop the tears he didn’t need to be shedding, and he just couldn’t.

Fitz was still glaring at the body, and Sophie still clung to him, tightly, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Linh, staring, her eyes dull, at the entire scene. He needed to move. He couldn’t stay here. He couldn’t keep staring at the crimson blood pooling on the snow or the look on Fitz’s face or Sophie’s perfect hug that couldn’t even distract him from the ache in his chest that he just couldn’t move beyond, right then.

So he didn’t. He got up, sniffing, as hard as he could, and said, tightly, “I think I’m going home.”

Sophie nodded, her eyes gentle, and tinged red with her own tears-- why had she been crying? She shouldn’t have needed to suffer for this. One of their greatest enemies was permanently defeated now, and she should have been… she shouldn't have been crying. “Alright, Keefe,” she said, so kindly that he wasn’t sure if he could make it home with his fractured focus. “The battle’s over anyhow. We’ll come check on you later, alright? Be safe.”

He nodded, once, and he turned, staring up into the unholy pain of the too-bright sun, which cursed his every thought and torched his every feeling with complete confusion. It was too bright, too snowy, too bloody, and it was all in his mind, like an endlessly repeating hymn, playing the cold look in his mother’s eyes, that wasn’t all so different than the one she had reserved for him. He held up his pathfinder into the sunlight, but before he could let it whisk him away to Candleshade, he turned around, and stared, one last time, at the corpse of his mother.

He swallowed, stiffly, and turned away. Not before he heard Linh, snarl, in a way that sounded horrible to anyone who had heard Linh’s kind heart carry through her words before, “Honestly, I couldn’t care less about her, but she has broken our friend’s heart too many times.”

Sophie nodded, from where she was standing, and he felt the rush of her emotions, which had been buried under his own for the last few minutes. “Gisella didn’t deserve her son.”

“Yeah,” Snarled Fitz, and Keefe knew they were all unaware of his presence. “I wish I’d been able to kick her.”

Biana, coming up on them, snorted, slightly, through her nose. “I’d have liked to kill her. Honestly. She hurt Keefe so much. He didn’t deserve that. From anyone.”

Sophie sighed. “I just wonder why she thought that hurting him was helping him.”

“I don’t want to know,” said Linh. “I don’t want to listen to any of her reasoning.”

Keefe turned back and stared at the group, all of whom seemed to be considering his mother’s corpse with something akin to rage. He couldn’t blame them. 

He also shouldn’t have been listening to this. It wasn’t helping him sort out his confused emotions.

After a moment or three of silence, Fitz kicked her body, and Keefe full on flinched, his chest feeling like it was being stabbed with about forty knives.

Sophie snarled something along the lines of, “Fitz, what the actual heck--”

But Biana shook her head once, and said, “Fitz, it won’t do her any good or bad now. She’s gone. Let’s go home. We can’t change anything, but we can bring Keefe a multitude of snacks.”

And without another word, Keefe raised his pathfinder towards the light, and let it whisk him on to a place he could never truly call home.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it! Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> Always remember that child abusers deserve exactly what I give them! I will steal kneecaps if any sort of harm towards their child is ever mentioned! Fear me!
> 
> Feel free to scream at me in the comments! They make my day!


End file.
